King understood revolutionary crossing line shows respect (6)
I believe the answer is:
kneels
'shows respect' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are verbs in their -s form, I cannot understand how one could define the other.
'king understood revolutionary crossing line' is the wordplay.
'king' becomes 'K' (abbreviation for king in chess).
'understood' becomes 'seen' (I've seen this before).
'revolutionary' shows that the letters should be reversed in order.
'crossing' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'line' becomes 'l' (used when specifying particular lines from a poem).
'seen' in reverse letter order is 'nees'.
'nees' going around 'l' is 'neels'.
'k'+'neels'='KNEELS'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for kneels that I've seen before include "Genuflects" , "Adopts customary position for prayer" , "Awaits blessing" , "Shows deference" , "Adopts normal posture for prayer" .)